Privacy Policy - Bulldog Websites

The gist:

Let’s keep things simple (to start with at least – if you like jargon the complicated version is further down, enjoy!)…

You give us information about you so that we can work with you. This is part of our contract.

We use and look after that information on physical computers and sometimes on the internet (you’ll hear some people call it ‘the cloud’).

Everywhere we’ve stored data is safe and secure and, wherever possible, within the EU, which is governed by the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK. Anything stored on systems outside the EU is checked and approved for security and governed under other recognised data protection regulators, like the US Privacy Shield or Canadian PIPEDA. We monitor these to make sure their regulations stay at the same level as the UK’s. We can tell you more about this if you’re interested.

While we are in contract we will contact you if we have good reason to do so, like if something needs fixing or improving on your website, if we might be tricky get hold of because we’re sunning ourselves on a beach somewhere (we can all dream right?!), or if you’ve contacted us first – it’s just good manners!

We’ll only keep information about you, and use it in a way, that’s relevant to the work we’re completing together … so when I ask you for the tenth time if you’d like sugar in your tea it’s GDPR’s fault, not my terrible memory.

When our contract comes to an end we will keep your information on file for as long as the law says we have to, then it will be securely destroyed.

If we don’t have a contract but we’ve been talking to each other in order to exchange goods / services / advice / cups of tea that’s what the ICO calls ‘legitimate interest’. We still look after your information in the same way as if we did have a contract, but if you tell us you don’t want to exchange goods / services / advice / cups of tea with us anymore, we’ll stop. We make good tea … just saying.

We don’t ‘cold call’, it’s just plain irritating. We definitely don’t buy or sell contact details, ever … that makes my blood boil!

We don’t currently write newsletters or send out promotions, and if we decide to in future we’ll ask you if you want to receive them. If you said yes but then changed your mind we’d stop sending them.

We don’t work with children; hats off to those who do but it’s not for us! And because of that we do not aim our website or any part of our business towards children, nor gather information about them.

Our website has links to other websites. Our Privacy Policy only covers our website, other websites will have their own. Our links are often to our customer websites, because we’re proud of what we do, it’s a bit like show and tell at school. If your website is lucky enough to be on our wall of fame but you’d rather it wasn’t, let us know and we’ll remove it.

We like to use cookies (tiny internet files) to keep an eye on how our website is being used and make sure it’s working as it should be and do things like link to social media profiles. We don’t use them to sneakily sell you stuff or spy on you. If you don’t want our website to use cookies you can tell it so by switching them off using the little ‘C’ icon in the bottom corner. You should still be able to use most of our website but if anything stops working that might be why.

We like to eat cookies (double choc chip preferably).

If you need us to update any of your information at any time, let us know.

If you want to see the information we keep on file for you, let us know.

If anything happened to your information which might mean that someone got access to it who shouldn’t have, we’d let you know straight away. Then we’d let the ICO know.

If you have any questions at all about this Privacy Policy or what we do with your information please email us – security@bulldogwebsites.co.uk or call 01285 61 60 66.

Now…

The wordy (but equally important) version:

Bulldog Websites is committed to safeguarding your privacy. Contact us at security@bulldogwebsites.co.uk if you have any questions or problems regarding the use of your Personal Data and we will gladly assist you.

By using this website and/or our services, you consent to the Processing of your Personal Data as described in this Privacy Policy.

Definitions used in this Policy
Data protection principles we follow
What rights do you have regarding your Personal Data
What Personal Data we gather about you
How we use your Personal Data
Who else has access to your Personal Data
How we secure your data
Safeguarding children
Information about cookies
Contact information

1. Definitions

Personal Data – any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.
Processing – any operation or set of operations which is performed on Personal Data or on sets of Personal Data.
Data subject – a natural person whose Personal Data is being Processed.
Child – a natural person under 16 years of age.
We/us (either capitalised or not) – Bulldog Websites

2. Data Protection Principles

We promise to follow the following data protection principles:

Processing is lawful, fair, transparent. Our Processing activities have lawful grounds. We always consider your rights before Processing Personal Data. We will provide you information regarding Processing upon request.
Processing is limited to the purpose. Our Processing activities fit the purpose for which Personal Data was gathered.
Processing is done with minimal data. We only gather and Process the minimal amount of Personal Data required for any purpose.
Processing is limited with a time period. We will not store your personal data for longer than needed.
We will do our best to ensure the accuracy of data.
We will do our best to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of data.

3. Data Subject’s rights

The Data Subject has the following rights:

Right to information – meaning you have to right to know whether your Personal Data is being processed; what data is gathered, from where it is obtained and why and by whom it is processed.
Right to access – meaning you have the right to access the data collected from/about you. This includes your right to request and obtain a copy of your Personal Data gathered.
Right to rectification – meaning you have the right to request rectification or erasure of your Personal Data that is inaccurate or incomplete.
Right to erasure – meaning in certain circumstances you can request for your Personal Data to be erased from our records.
Right to restrict processing – meaning where certain conditions apply, you have the right to restrict the Processing of your Personal Data.
Right to object to processing – meaning in certain cases you have the right to object to Processing of your Personal Data, for example in the case of direct marketing.
Right to object to automated Processing – meaning you have the right to object to automated Processing, including profiling; and not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated Processing. This right you can exercise whenever there is an outcome of the profiling that produces legal effects concerning or significantly affecting you.
Right to data portability – you have the right to obtain your Personal Data in a machine-readable format or if it is feasible, as a direct transfer from one Processor to another.
Right to lodge a complaint – in the event that we refuse your request under the Rights of Access, we will provide you with a reason as to why. If you are not satisfied with the way your request has been handled please contact us.
Right for the help of The Information Commissioner’s Office – meaning you have the right for the help of a supervisory authority and the right for other legal remedies such as claiming damages.
Right to withdraw consent – you have the right withdraw any given consent for Processing of your Personal Data.

4. Data we gather

Information you have provided us with

This might be your email address, name, billing address, home address etc – mainly information that is necessary for delivering you a product/service or to enhance your customer experience with us. We save the information you provide us with in order for you to comment or perform other activities on the website, but it will be clear where you are required to submit this information. This information includes, for example, your name and email address.

Information automatically collected about you

This includes information that is automatically stored by cookies and other session tools. For example your IP address, your previously selected preferences (if any) etc. This information is used to improve your customer experience. When you use our services or look at the contents of our website, your activities may be logged. Our Cookie Control allows you to adjust what you allow us to collect about you.

Publicly available information

We might gather information about you that is publicly available to help improve our service to you.

5. How we use your Personal Data

We use your Personal Data in order to:

provide our service to you. This includes for example registering your account; providing you with products and services that you have requested; providing you with promotional items at your request and communicating with you in relation to those products and services; communicating and interacting with you; and notifying you of changes to any services;
enhance your customer experience;
fulfil an obligation under law or contract.

We use your Personal Data on legitimate grounds and/or with your Consent.

On the grounds of entering into a contract or fulfilling contractual obligations, we Process your Personal Data for the following purposes:

to identify you;
to provide you a service or to send/offer you a product;
to communicate for sales, service, information or invoicing.

On the ground of legitimate interest, we Process your Personal Data for the following purposes:

to send you personalised offers;
to administer and analyse our client base (purchasing behaviour and history) in order to improve the quality, variety, and availability of products/services offered/provided;
to conduct questionnaires concerning client satisfaction;
To provide information on service status, eg. outages, interruptions or changes.

As long as you have not informed us otherwise, we consider offering you products/services that are similar or same to your purchasing history/browsing behaviour to be our legitimate interest.

With your consent we Process your Personal Data for the following purposes:

to send you newsletters and offers;
for other purposes we have asked your consent for.

We Process your Personal Data in order to fulfil obligation rising from law and/or use your Personal Data for options provided by law. We reserve the right to anonymise Personal Data gathered and to use any such data. We will use data outside the scope of this Policy only when it is anonymised.

We save your billing information and other information gathered about you for as long as needed for accounting purposes or other obligations deriving from law, but not longer than 7 years from the date of your completed contract.

We might process your Personal Data for additional purposes that are not mentioned here, but are compatible with the original purpose for which the data was gathered. To do this, we will ensure that:

the link between purposes, context and nature of Personal Data is suitable for further Processing;
the further Processing would not harm your interests and
there would be appropriate safeguard for Processing.

We will inform you of any further Processing and purposes.

6. Who else can access your Personal Data

We do not share your Personal Data with strangers. Personal Data about you is in some cases provided to our trusted partners in order to either make providing the service to you possible or to enhance your customer experience.

As data controller we use data processors for the provision of:

our accounting processes;
our customer relationship management; and
our marketing and service information emails.

We hold the relevant contracts with these data processors in relation to protecting your data.

Where we act as a data processor under GDPR we shall:

only act upon your written instruction as the data controller;
not use a sub-data processor without your prior authorisation;
co-operate with relevant supervisory bodies, including the Information Commissioner’s Office;
ensure we have adequate technical and organisational measures in place to ensure the security of our processing;
keep records of our processing activities, where relevant;
on termination of this contract, howsoever arising, delete all of your data unless required to retain it for legal or operational reasons; and
notify any personal data breaches affecting your data, to you.

You authorise that we may use third party sub-data processors for the provision of:

your hosting; and
your email services.

We hold the relevant contracts with these sub-data processors in relation to protecting your data.

We only work with Processing partners who are able to ensure adequate level of protection to your Personal Data. We disclose your Personal Data to third parties or public officials when we are legally obliged to do so. We might disclose your Personal Data to third parties if you have consented to it or if there are other legal grounds for it.

7. How we secure your data

We do our best to keep your Personal Data safe. We use safe protocols for communication and transferring data (such as HTTPS). We use anonymising and pseudonymising where suitable. We monitor our systems for possible vulnerabilities and attacks.

Even though we try our best we cannot guarantee the security of information. However, we promise to notify suitable authorities of data breaches. We will also notify you if there is a threat to your rights or interests. We will do everything we reasonably can to prevent security breaches and to assist authorities should any breaches occur.

If you have an account with us, note that you have to keep your username and password secret.

8. Children

We do not intend to collect or knowingly collect information from children. We do not target children with our services.

9. Cookies and other technologies we use

We use cookies and/or similar technologies to analyse customer behaviour, administer the website, track users’ movements, and to collect information about users. This is done in order to personalise and enhance your experience with us.

A cookie is a tiny file stored on your computer. Cookies store information that is used to help make websites work. Only we can access the cookies created by our website. You can control your cookies using our Cookie Control or directly in your browser. Choosing to disable cookies may hinder your use of certain functions.

We use cookies for the following purposes:

Necessary cookies – these cookies are required for you to be able to use some important features on our website, such as logging in. These cookies don’t collect any personal information.
Functionality cookies – these cookies provide functionality that makes using our service more convenient and makes providing more personalised features possible. For example, they might remember your name and email in comment forms so you don’t have to re-enter this information next time when commenting.
Analytics cookies – these cookies are used to track the use and performance of our website and services.
Advertising cookies – we don’t use these, but for your information these cookies are used to deliver advertisements that are relevant to you and to your interests. In addition, they are used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement. They are usually placed on website by advertising networks with the website operator’s permission. These cookies remember that you have visited a website and this information is shared with other organisations such as advertisers. Often targeting or advertising cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organisation.

You can remove cookies stored in your computer via your browser settings. Alternatively, you can control cookies on our website by clicking the ‘C’ Cookie Control logo in the bottom corner of our website. For more information about cookies, visit allaboutcookies.org.

We use Google Analytics to measure traffic on our website. Google has their own Privacy Policy which you can review here. If you’d like to opt out of tracking by Google Analytics, visit the Google Analytics opt-out page.

9. Contact Information

Should you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or concerns about the data we hold about you please contact us – security@bulldogwebsites.co.uk.

We are registered with The Information Commissioner’s Office. If you have any cause for concern you may contact the ICO via their website https://ico.org.uk.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to make changes to this Privacy Policy.
Last review September 2023.